Passengers have told how their flight on a Boeing 787 “Dreamliner” plane ended up turning into a nightmare.

There were 288 travelers on board the Thomson Airways flight from the Dominican Republic to Manchester, UK, when it suffered an engine problem over the Atlantic.

British holiday-makers Gary Barton and his wife, Caroline, who were traveling with their daughter, said they noticed a change in the engine noise about an hour-and-a-half into the trip. They claim the plane then began to drop.

“We could see on our screens that our altitude was dropping about 500 feet (152 meters) every minute,” Mrs. Barton told the Manchester Evening News. “The captain said he had to fly lower because he only had one engine. It looked like we were just dropping into the Atlantic.”

The captain had been forced to shut the engine down, and needed to make an emergency landing.

The plane then flew for four hours at a low altitude before landing at a remote military airport in the Azores, Portugal.

“It was a really frightening landing. Everyone was on edge — we were told to expect a bumpy landing because they had to use double thrust on one engine and we could see all the fire engines on the ground.

“It was extremely tense on that plane. Our daughter was shaking — she was saying, ‘What if we don’t make it?’”

They were then surrounded by armed guards and the plane sat on the runway for five hours before they were allowed out.

They were delayed for a total of more than 11 hours as they waited for a replacement plane.

The family said they will never step on a 787 Dreamliner again.

“They call it the Dreamliner but it was more like a nightmare,” Mr. Barton said.

A Thomson Airways spokeswoman told the UK’s Mirror that the plane experienced a technical issue and was diverted as a precaution.

The passengers will be given $181 to cover costs incurred because of the delay.

“The safety of our customers and crew is of paramount importance and we would like to apologize for the delay experienced,” the spokeswoman said.

News.com.au has contacted the airline for further comment.

The much-anticipated, high-tech Dreamliner, which made its first test flight in 2009, has been plagued with problems including electrical issues on United Airlines and Qatar Airways planes in 2012 and a battery fire on a Japan Airlines jet in 2013. ANA Airlines was then hit with two problems — a cracked window on one plane and a smoke alert on another, which forced the temporary grounding of the global Dreamliner fleet in 2013. That was followed by the discovery of hairline cracks in the wings of the aircraft this year, due to a manufacturing defect.